Need You
by magenwashere
Summary: Katie made a mistake. Marcus isn't sure if she means it when she says she needs him. Written for a challenge, prompt #5 alone in a crowd. Warning, F-bomb, but only once.


"I know it's late. I know that we're…" she took a deep breath before continuing. "We're not the way we were, but I really need you right now."

He'd let her in, while he watched her sitting on the couch, leaning against the door jam, with _that _look in his eye. The one he got when he was trying to work out something out real quick. The one he got on the Quidditch field.

"You owl your step-mum?" she shook her head no.

"Your friends?" she shook her head again.

He sighed. "Then why are you here? I'm a last resort? Are the people you usually go to first unavailable, and I'm next on the list? I can't play this game, Katie. I won't. I won't be used." His face was stony. To anyone else he would seem uncaring and emotionless, but Katie knew that it was only in defense. Marcus did not like to show his feelings, no matter what they were. Anger, fear, love, it was natural for him to slip on that mask around people he didn't trust. The exact look he was giving her now.

It hurt a lot more than she'd expected.

"Why are you here Katie?" He sounded tired.

She tried to speak. "I don't…I just-" He cut her off.

"No Katie. No. You can't come back here for no reason at all. We're done. That's what you wanted, so that's what happened! It's over, it's done and you can't bloody well come back here when I'm not over you!" He raised his voice and shook his head vehemently.

"You left, you did, not me. You wanted space, I've given you fucking space! I can't so much as owl you, but you can show up with no warning, and it's supposed to be okay." He sighed, calm now.

"Katie…why are you here?"

"My dad died today." She didn't look up at him, couldn't.

"I just…need you. I need you Marcus." She started crying again. "You are the only person in the entire world who can make it better. You've always been able to make me feel better no matter what, even if we're fighting. It doesn't matter what we are now or were before, or what's going on between us, because right now I don't care. I just need you." She finally looked up at him, and his heart crashed at her feet, just like it did every time those baby blue eyes landed on him.

"C'mere, Katie." She got up and walked over to him, half terrified he was going to kick her out. But he didn't. What he did do was wrap his arms around her in an embrace so comforting, she was reminded of that time when she was fifteen. One of her parents had died then too. Her mother. That was the time that triggered 'them'. It brought them together. She'd been crying then too, on the staircase after Dumbledore had told Katie that her mother had died just that morning at St. Mungo's. Unable to make it back to the common room, she just collapsed. And there he'd been, tall, dark, and a little scary.

He hadn't said anything to her. Hadn't asked what was wrong, or tried to calm her down. All he'd done was sit down beside her, wrap his arms around her just like he was doing now, and let her cry into his chest.

Not that Marcus wasn't a tough, scary Slytherin, because he was. But everyone has at least one weakness, and Marcus, tough and strong as he was, could not stand the sight of a female crying. Any girl could be crying, and Marcus just couldn't help but offer some form of gruff comfort.

That had been five years ago. He'd been eighteen, in his second seventh year. After that day, they'd made an attempt to be civil towards one another, even occasionally sending owls once he'd finally graduated. They'd made it work, no matter what. Through fights with each other, their friends, their families, they had stood together, always. Then the war had come, and gone, but they'd survived. They lasted through friends and family dying.

Then surviving just wasn't enough. She felt it, and he did to, but he just didn't want to let it happen. So he pushed harder and she didn't push hard enough. So, she'd asked him to give her time to figure things out. They hadn't spoken in a month.

But she was here now. That being said, she backed away, squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"I'm here, because when I wake up in the morning I always reach for you beside me, but you aren't there. I get out of the shower and go to the kitchen expecting you to be there, cooking or reading the sports section, but you're not. I'm at work and I always have to stop myself from owling you because I remember we're done, and it's my fault. All day I try not to remember going to lunch with you, surprising you on the field, or having you just drop in. All of that is bad, it hurts, but I can deal with all of that, ten times over if I had to. Because-" She let out a shaky breath. "-because nothing, _nothing, _is worse than walking home without you."

Marcus watched her trying to keep it together and failing. "Everybody is getting off work about the same time, so it's even worse because I'm all alone in a crowd of people. And then I go to bed, reaching for you, and do it all again the next day."

He wanted to hold her, but he wouldn't break his resolve. "I'm someone to come running back to when you're lonely, so if that's all-"

"Marcus!" she yelled.

Seeing she had his attention again, Katie continued. "Don't you see? It's not that I'm lonely all together. I just have this big, Marcus-shaped hole in my life. It's in my heart too, and I really need it to be filled. But you're the only one who can fill it." She saw his grin, the one that said he was thinking dirty thoughts.

_There he is. My Marcus. _

He nodded, and opened his arms. "C'mere babe." She jumped into them, and he twirled her around once.

"I'm not letting you go again. Screw giving you 'space'. You're mine babe." He smiled a happy smile, but his gaze was possessive. "I love you, Katie."

"I love you too Marcus. More than I realized."

The End. :P


End file.
